Friday, January 23, 2015

A Close Shave – Should Have Used BSI Epoxy on King Tut

This incident seems to be an example of choosing an epoxy with too
short a working time. Our guess is that they used 5 minute, when
BSI's 15 or 30 minute epoxy would have been more appropriate. This
would make a great Saturday Night Live comedy skit!

Beard on King Tut's burial mask damaged after epoxy gluing

CAIRO – The blue and gold braided
beard on the burial mask of famed pharaoh Tutankhamun was hastily
glued back on with epoxy, damaging the relic after it was knocked
during cleaning, conservators at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo said
Wednesday.

Three of the museum's conservators reached by telephone gave
differing accounts of when the incident occurred last year, and
whether the beard was knocked off by accident while the mask's
case was being cleaned, or was removed because it was loose.

They agree however that orders came from above to fix it quickly
and that an inappropriate adhesive was used. All spoke on
condition of anonymity for fear of professional reprisals.

"Unfortunately he used a very irreversible material — epoxy has a
very high property for attaching and is used on metal or stone but
I think it wasn't suitable for an outstanding object like
Tutankhamun's golden mask," one conservator said.

"The mask should have been taken to the conservation lab but they
were in a rush to get it displayed quickly again and used this
quick drying, irreversible material," the conservator added.

The conservator said that the mask now shows a gap between the
face and the beard, whereas before it was directly attached: "Now
you can see a layer of transparent yellow."

Another museum conservator, who was present at the time of the
repair, said that epoxy had dried on the face of the boy king's
mask and that a colleague used a spatula to remove it, leaving
scratches. The first conservator, who inspects the artifact
regularly, confirmed the scratches and said it was clear that they
had been made by a tool used to scrape off the epoxy.